Travel tools I can’t do without-Part 2

The sort of topics that readers email me about tends to vary from week to week, but there are several questions that crop up fairly regularly. One of the more common ones that I get is:

“Which travel products/services do you yourself use (and recommend) ‘day-to-day’?”

Now a lot of this may be purely subjective but I thought it would be a useful idea to take a look over the next few weeks and months, at some of my favorite travel-related services that I currently make use of.

And I stand by that. This is a must-have for any half-serious points collector and saves me countless time and effort by remembering all of my account login details and enables me to easily update all of my balances in a matter of minutes. You can read my full review on Award Wallet and Part 1 of this series here.

As a general rule, I don’t have many things that I subscribe to year after year on an annual basis. This is usually because deals come and go and whatever it may be, I can often find a better offer than the one I am on at the moment. Today though, I am going to take a look at a product that I have happily renewed my annual subscription for, over the last 3 years. I am talking about my Worldwide Car Hire Excess Insurance from insurance4carhire.com.

With the summer holidays creeping up on us, people will be heading off to all parts of the globe, and many will be hiring cars for part or all of their trip. One of my personal bugbears is searching online for the best deal on a car rental, only to arrive at the rental office and be handed a form containing a list of costly extras.

I suppose the easiest way round that issue is to hold the Platinum card (my full review here) from American Express which offers comprehensive car hire insurance and allows you to decline all of those expensive add-ons. However, unless you are hiring a car for leisure purposes on regular basis, it would be difficult to justify the hefty £450 annual fee purely on the basis of the car hire insurance perk.

Therefore, I was searching for a different solution when a friend recommended insurance4carhire.com who he had been using for a number of years. I took out, and have been taking out ever since, the Worldwide Car Hire Excess Insurance Cover, which as the name suggests, covers me worldwide and ensures I can decline all additional bolt-on excess waivers that rental companies will try and sell me.

The regular cost of this policy is £49.99, however by using this link, Xexec clients are eligible for a 15% discount across all policies making this particular version just £42.49.

How much can you save?

To get an indication of just how quickly you can make your annual fee back and then start saving by purchasing such a policy, I priced up a couple of rentals with some different rental companies:

Here is the price for a five-day Hertz rental in Malaga, Spain:

As you can see, purchasing an excess waiver from Hertz would cost roughly £28 per day which means a total cost of £140 on top of the rental fee itself!

And here is a 7-day Sixt rental in Milan, Italy:

As you can see above, an excess waiver would cost approx £25 a day/£175 total which is ridiculous when you consider that the base rate for the rental is approx £31/£217 total!

There are many areas covered by the Insurance4carhire policy, notably:

Car rental key cover up to £500 per claim and up to £2,000 per year

You (the policyholder), plus up to seven additional drivers named on your rental agreement

Drivers aged 21 to 85 years old (inclusive)

Damage caused by using the wrong type of fuel: up to £500 per claim and £2,000 per year

Late pick up charges due to an unscheduled flight delay

Here is a list of the many areas of coverage that their policy offers:

How to buy

The 15% discount is already calculated, therefore the prices you see are what you’ll pay.

They offer a range of products including a UK & Europe only version for £33.99 – although for the extra £9 or so, you may well just decide to go for the worldwide option – I certainly can’t predict where my travels will take me and would always rather know I’m covered.

They also have an interesting policy that covers the Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) and Supplementary Liability Insurance (SLI) that many US & Canadian rental companies require you to take out.

Verdict

As you can see simply from the examples I’ve highlighted above, £42 a year is a genuine bargain! It allows me the peace of mind to safely decline all additional excess options without a second thought. Although thankfully I have never had to deal with a claim, I do know of others who have and have said it was a very smooth process. A quick search on Google reveals excellent Feefo ratings based on more than 8,000 reviews – all in all a wise buy in my view!